Don't miss the 24th annual Chalk Festival, hosted by the Cleveland Museum of Art, will take place on Saturday, September 21 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday, September 22, from noon to 5:00 p.m.!

In Luxuriance: Silks from Islamic Lands, 1250–1900, the most distinguished areas of the world highlighted include textiles from Islamic lands including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Spain, and Turkey. Beginning the first week of September, we will spotlight a different period within the collection here on the CMA blog. This week: Iran and Iraq.

Spend a virtual lunch break with the Cleveland Museum of Art: Join us on Friday, September 13 at 12:15 p.m. for a live Twitter chat with CMA’s Provenance Chef Partner Douglas Katz! Until 1 p.m., Katz will be answering questions and handing out tips about transitioning summer-to-fall recipes and discussing Provenance’s new prix fixe menu devoted to Sicilian cuisine (available at Provenance beginning September 11). We’ll also be giving away gift certificates to the restaurant during the chat, so you don’t want to miss this!

In Luxuriance: Silks from Islamic Lands, 1250–1900, the most distinguished areas of the world highlighted include textiles from Islamic lands including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Spain, and Turkey. Beginning the first week of September, we will spotlight a different period within the collection here on the CMA blog. This week: Islamic Spain.

The Eastern religious practice of Tantra emphasizing ritual, meditation, and visualization is the subject of the second exhibition in the museum’s new Focus Gallery. Tantra in Buddhist Art features twenty works of art that illustrate the spiritual practices of Tantra in the Buddhist context and document its spread across Asia from the seventh to 17th centuries. Inspiration for this exhibition began with a magnificent piece from a bequest to the museum. Hevajra was part of a gift from John and Maxeen Flower and is the defining piece of Tantra in Buddhist Art. We spoke with Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, the George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art, about how she built the exhibition around Hevajra and the history of Tantric Buddhism.

Currently on display in the east wing glass box gallery, Damián Ortega: The Blast and Other Embers highlights the striking suspended sculpture The Controller of the Universe. Additionally, this exhibition features the Tool Bones series, which were created specifically for this exhibition. We sat down with Reto Thüring, associate curator of Contemporary Art, to find out more about the exhibition.

The museum's first Friday of the month cocktail parties, MIX at CMA, have been going strong since they began last October. With each month featuring a different theme, the events have consistently drawn upwards of 1,000 people and have gotten the attention of the New York Times Travel section for their innovative programming.

Barbara Tannenbaum, Curator of Photography, provides background on the Afro-Chic video by Carrie Mae Weems, on display through September 29 as part of the artist's retrospective, Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video.